
OTHER PROGRAMS
The Ascend Foundation
is consistently pushing the envelope! Check out our Press Coverage!!!
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The Clarence Phillips Memorial Scholarships
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When we as a Foundation first got started we gave away close to $10,000.00 in scholarships to very deserving young individuals. As of 2021, we just awarded $760,000

in scholarship money for the year. This brings our total accrued scholarship amount to slightly over $1,900,000 to date.
We look for aspiring young individuals that are looking to better themselves scholastically as well as in life. We give scholarships away in the categories of: scholastic excellence, specialized career paths, community involvement, as well as performing arts. This scholarship fund started as a living endowment that the Phillips family put in place to award scholarships over the last 27 years.
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Project 42
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This program is geared to take different groups of children to either a historical or cultural movie or theatrical play. This is geared to educate and bring an enlightenment of the historical events of the past that helped shape our existence from that time

to the present. This is a Foundation funded trip where we originally took 32 children to see the movie, 42 (The Jackie Robinson Story).
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The next day, we held a seminar dealing with the subject matter of the movie and monumental historic events that surrounded the Civil Rights Movement. This is a 2 day process that has affected the lives of many of these children. This is an initiative that we do at least 3 times a year. It is because of this project that first started with the movie ‘42’ that we have used that as the name for all the ongoing outings that we take our children on.
The Ascend Foundation Presents the Lifetime Network 'Bring It' Camp and Showcase
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The Clarence E. Phillips Ascend Foundation, in collaboration with the DANCING DOLLS from the Lifetime hit show BRING IT, brought a 3-day dance camp and talent showcase to Pontiac High School for kids between the ages of 8-21. This particular weekend was FILMED for the upcoming season of the show on the Lifetime Network for one of its episodes!!! The second HUGE BONUS to this program was, ALL PROCEEDS from the Sunday Showcase was donated by The Ascend Foundation to Pontiac Schools to help attack their deficit!!! This event had 86 dance camp participants as well as over 1,500 people who came out to witness the FINAL SHOWCASE!!!

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Ascend Foundation Annual Kids Night of the Stars Talent Extravaganza Scholarship Benefit Program
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The Ascend Foundation Annual Kids Night of the Stars Talent Extravaganza Scholarship Program is a Kids Talent Showcase which serves as an excellent platform to highlight our young and gifted through the arts. This
program brings the BEST of the BEST to the stage for one night of pure excitement. The talent pool consists of acts that come from all over the state of Michigan. This program has everything from: live bands, instrumental soloist, singers, multiple disciplines of dance, spoken word, theatrical skits and so much more.
This is one of our biggest fundraising efforts to raise money for our scholarship fund. Last year, we gave out close to $760,000 in scholarship money to deserving students. This is a way to help us to maintain a continued effort to help our scholarship recipients obtain their educational goals and dreams as well as grow the amount of scholarships offered. This program also serves as a recognition program to celebrate community excellence and help us celebrate these extremely gifted children as well as the acknowledgement of some of our scholarship recipients.